How To Get Into Pharmacy School: Tips, Tools, and Advice

If you're interested in finding out how to get into pharmacy school, then we've got a few tips for you. These won't make you absolutely certain to get in, of course. There's still going to be more to do beyond simply following our advice, and there will also be some factors which are totally outside of your control, but these tips can be a good place to start.

How to Get Into Pharmacy School Tip #1: Be a Good Student

If you want to know how to get into pharmacy school, then you may be surprised to find out that the first answer is pretty simple: study hard and do well in your courses.

One of the best, simplest, and most certain ways that you can ensure that you have a better chance of entering into pharmacy school is by taking courses related to pharmacy studies and doing well in those courses. Of course you should strive to do well in all of your courses, not just the ones that seem somehow directly related to pharmacy studies.

Pharmacy programs do not have a universal minimum GPA that you need to reach, and typically, the average GPA of accepted students will vary from program to program. Instead, you need to get as high a GPA as you can. Even the easiest pharmacy schools to get into will require you to have a good GPA.

Putting GPA aside, it is important that anyone interested in getting into pharmacy school has attended undergraduate college for the appropriate amount of time, which is generally at least 2 to 3 years, although most applicants to pharmacy school have earned bachelor's degrees.

How to Get Into Pharmacy School Tip #2: Get Some Experience

Another tip on how to get into pharmacy school is to simply make sure you have some amount of on-the-job experience. Try to get some kind of internship position in a pharmacy or work with a pharmacist.

Any hands-on experience is more likely to make you an appealing candidate for student status at a pharmacy school. Also, just as with focusing and studying hard, working in the field will help you obtain skills and knowledge you'll need when you start working as a pharmacist.

If you can work as a pharmacy technician prior to attempting entry into a pharmacy school, you will have an even greater advantage for getting into pharmacy school. One plan for getting into pharmacy school is to become a pharmacy technician first and work your way up. If you're interested in getting experience as a pharmacy technician, you should look into Peterson's undergraduate section and its page on pharmacy colleges.

A very good way to distinguish yourself from other applicants for pharmacy school is to have actual publications, patents, or other official documentation of your prior work and research that you can show to the admissions departments of the schools to which you are applying. These will demonstrate your wealth of knowledge and suitability for entry into their schools and will help you out in the pharmacy school interview, as you'll be able to show your expertise.

How to Get Into Pharmacy School Tip #3: Study Hard for the PCAT

A critical piece of advice for how to get into pharmacy school is to simply make sure that when you take the PCAT, or Pharmacy College Admission Test, you do as well as you possibly can.

The PCAT is one of the key measures that will determine whether or not you meet the base requirements for entry into pharmacy school, and as such, it is very important for anyone interested in getting into pharmacy school.

The test includes questions on biology, chemistry, quantitative analysis, reading comprehension, and verbal skills. Studying and preparing yourself for questions on any and all of these subjects is the best way to make sure that you will do as well as possible, and if you are dissatisfied with your scores, you should be prepared to retake the test.

As another important strategy for getting into medical school, you'll want to make sure that your pharmacy personal statement is top notch before submitting any applications. To do that, you might want to look into an expert essay editing services, like EssayEdge.

Brendan Conway is the Web Content Editor for Peterson's Interactive and is well-versed in the world of higher education and admissions. He is a graduate of Hamilton College, and has been working in admissions advice, test-prep advice, career planning advice, and similar fields for the majority of his career since graduation. Brendan endeavors to provide the most relevant, useful, and interesting information via Peterson's Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ feeds. Brendan enjoys lexicological oddities and voraciously reading in his free time.